How can psychological science enhance the effectiveness of identification

The reliability of eyewitness identification has attracted concern from the legal profession in England for at least 100 years. In 1904 a committee of enquiry was established to investigate the trials of Adolf Beck. Incredibly, on two separate occasions Adolf Beck was wrongly convicted on the basis of mistaken eyewitness identification. In both trials, multiple eyewitnesses identified Beck as a confidence trickster who stole jewellery from them. The crimes were subsequently found to have been committed by William Wyatt. The 1904 Committee of enquiry led directly to the establishment of a Court of Appeal. Concern about further wrongful convictions based on mistaken identification led to a government enquiry into the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence, chaired by Lord Devlin, which reported in 1976. The Devlin report led directly to a landmark judgement in the English Court of Appeal, which established a requirement that in cases of disputed identification the trial judge must caution the jury about the dangers of eyewitness identification evidence. The judge should point out that confident eyewitnesses may be mistaken and instruct the jury to consider carefully the circumstances of the identification. From this historical perspective, it is unsurprising to learn that mistaken eyewitness identification is also a major problem for the United States courts.